This is ever the way

I have a consult with a therapist tomorrow to see if I will work with her. I worry that from her photos she looks young, barely older than my own children, and what if she knows them in these intersecting circles we inhabit. Because I will certainly talk about my children, about the particular loneliness of releasing them to their adult lives, of trusting them to navigate the rapids without my help, when all I want to do is hold their hand and guide them surely through life’s eddies the way I did when they were children, ensuring they would make it safely to the other side, physical and emotional bodies intact. 

Will a youngish therapist understand the bereft feeling that older mothers of adult children must find a place for when they realize it is the companion that has come to stay, the shadow that accompanies you everywhere, that hides behind your smile, your fierce functionality in the world, the times you will yourself not to send one more intrusive text, knowing your children are busy with their lives, remembering when you were busy with your life and assumed your own mother was going about her days, too, and she was doing that, she was fiercely functional, after all, where do you think you learned it, never mind the shadow companion you never saw.

Or maybe you glimpsed its presence sometimes, in the faraway look in her eyes, which you failed to recognize as sadness, as she released you, again and again, to your chock full life, knowing this is the way of parents such as she was, she would have it no other way, she would merely wait in the wings should you ever need her, she knew you knew she would always be there, the net arrayed beneath you, faint as gossamer, sturdy as her limitless love, this is ever the way.

__________

Scrolling on social media this morning I ran across a post that made me pause because I am contemplating reentering therapy. A woman wrote:

I told my therapist one day: "I'm not suicidal. I just don't want to be here anymore."

She looked at me softly and said, "There's a kind of suicidal no one talks about. Not the kind that screams, but the kind that fades. The kind that sounds like 'I'm just tired!' 'I don't want to do this anymore!' 'What if I didn't wake up tomorrow?'" And then she paused.

That silence hit harder than anything. Because she was right. I still got up every day. I still smiled when people asked how I was. I still replied to messages with, "I'm fine." But inside? I was gone. Numb. Hollow. Floating through my own life like a ghost. And people called it "burnout." Or "just stress." But I knew better. It wasn't exhaustion. 

It was grief.

Grief for the years I held it together when no one held me. Grief for the life that demanded performance, not presence. Grief for becoming "the strong one" before I ever felt safe enough to be weak. And the cruel part? No one noticed. Because I was still functioning. Still showing up. Too considerate to fall apart where anyone could see. That's the kind of pain that almost takes you out—the invisible kind. The quiet kind. The "I'm fine" kind.

My therapist told me, “Sometimes the bravest thing you'll ever do is finally stop pretending to be okay." And maybe that's where healing begins—not in strength, but in surrender.

__________

Alone in my house on Sunday morning, my husband running the tech at church, the sun at my window setting gold leaves aflame, I read what that woman wrote and when I got to the word grief the sobs just broke. I had no idea they were right there at the surface, so quick to ambush me. And now wont stop. 

We keep on.